What Do You Get From a $35,000 Espresso Machine?

For a long time, American coffee culture was pretty mass-market and pretty unremarkable. Having a plastic, cone-shaped drip filter in your home and an aluminum can of Folgers next to it was as American as apple pie. Espresso machines were considered foreign, outré, and elitist. As Bluestone Lane partner Andy Stone explained to Vogue recently it wasn’t until Starbucks began to roll out espresso offerings in the 1980s that most Americans even really knew what espresso coffee was.

But the problem with plastic coffee machines and cone-shaped drip filters is not just about aesthetics; it’s about the coffee itself. Espresso draws more flavor and character out of the beans than traditional drip coffee methods. When spending money on single-origin, Fair Trade, organic beans all the way from Sumatra or beyond, it serves your interests and your palate to invest in a high-quality espresso machine.

Today, the market for espresso machines offers everything from basic $40 home brew options on Amazon, to commercial-grade Italian-made machines that easily run upwards of $12,000. Despite the heavy price tags, the truth remains that since the invention of the espresso machine in late-nineteenth century Italy, there have been staggeringly few improvements on the technology, a problem which Canadian entrepreneur Jason Prefontaine noticed after working as an coffee machine importer and a bean roaster throughout the 90s and 2000s. In 2007, Prefontaine moved to Seattle to create Slayer Espresso, the all-American enfant terrible of the coffee world, known for its big-impact designs and even bigger-impact price tags.

Based on his years of experience in the coffee machine importing business, Prefontaine designed a machine with extra powers: it has a patented flow control mechanism that gives baristas the ability to manipulate the and transform the flavor of espresso, and a patent-pending vaporizer that boosts the temperature of steam, creating a dry, invisible vapor that penetrates coffee beans better than a traditional espresso machine. Heating elements are designed from a custom, proprietary metal alloy that won’t break down or explode in the way cheaper, ordinary copper elements will. An entry-level Slayer machine starts at $8,500, but the price swells when customers take advantage of Slayer’s unique appeal: complete customization. Don’t like the brushed aluminum exterior? For an extra $1,000 it can be polished your way. Add wood or carbon fiber panels, or even have Hermès-quality leather put on the sides. Suddenly, matching the color of your espresso machine to your tile backsplash seems pretty basic—Slayer says they once sold a $35,000 espresso machine plated entirely in 24-karat gold.

All this talk about super high-end espresso machines and patented flow valves might seem esoteric and far-removed from everyday coffee drinkers. After all, most Slayer customers are cafés like Devoción in New York, and Evoke Coffee Co. and Slate in Seattle. But the rise in popularity of such machines has implications for coffee everywhere. Imagine trying to order a latté at Dunkin Donuts ten years ago. Today, every location has an espresso machine. As long as coffee obsessives continue to make and buy the $35,000 espresso machine, big chain coffee companies will continue to chase the sort of quality and customization that companies like Slayer offer, making better brews for us all.